Social justice warriors and identity politics - They don't get it

Well, it’s about time I let it all go out there for the entire word word to read: I think all types of “Internet wokeness” is terrible for society and those who are playing the game of black and white good versus evil are only in so deep in their non existing trenches because they are not aware of the underlying operating system that created whatever fake war they are fighting.

Let me explain myself, let’s use a hot button issue as an example: Trump.

Depending of what side of the debate you are on, you can bet your bottom dollar that at least someone, somewhere just jumped from their seat either in anger or excitement simply by reading those five letters that make up the current US president. You can hear the tribal drums beating in the distance as once side of the political debate shouts the latest trump catchphrase to the rhythm of a war chant followed by another distant tribe screaming in anger.

Early human tribes fighting and screaming at each other, taken from Stanley Kubrik’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

“So uncivilized” says one random Internet user on a comment thread, he accuses the opposition of the movement that is so close to his heart of being like a tribe or a cult, he smashes his enter key and the comment has been posted besides his “ironic meme” or anime profile picture. This back and forth of insults and “logical arguments” to “destroy” other people like you and me is the fuel of the fire that is the cycle of toxic memes.

This pattern goes beyond US politics, take for example the social justice warrior movement, the anti-social warrior movement, the redpill community, the anti-postmodernist movement, Men going their own way, incels, the flat earth community, the anti-vax movement, religious extremism, anti-theists extremists and on and on and on.

This Red-anti-sjw-pro-feminism-identity-politics-pill makes people angry, so much in fact that they go behold their way to oppose their identified out-group. They think they are changing the world by standing up to the repression of their values when in fact they are just involuntarily playing a part of the spread of a meme, they are just another cog in the cultural machine, a “useful idiot” of memetics.

Now let me back up a bit, I have no intentions of insulting anyone, I don’t literally think anyone who engages in culture (that is pretty much anyone) is a “useful idiot”, it’s not that people inside the movements I listed are the dumb and stupid kind of idiots, no , instead I refer to them as more of a clueless or ignorant of certain elements of culture kind of idiot and that is nothing to be ashamed of really - We are all ignorant about may things and that’s OK - The problem is when we become arrogant about what is a honestly trivial problem, I mean no harm to the “true believers” of ideology X with these words, my message is not one of hate for this community, I’m trying to downplay the issue enough for us to see the full picture.

How ideas spread

This will most likely sound familiar in multiple levels, I’ll put it like this: there’s a competition for the hearts and minds of society, it’s not a battle visible with the naked eye; it all happens inside our heads. Let’s take a pop song as an example, if you are an artist and you want as much people to buy tickets for your concerts as humanly possible then you need a good and effective pop song.

First you listen to the radio, keeping your ears open for the latest music trends, on the bilboard top 100 charts there’s a constant battle for the number one spot, how did they get there? well first a producer put a lot of effort into making his vision come true, then he published the song, if the song has the perfect hook, rhythm and enough time on the radio or on a movie it will eventually find a small audience, but to make it to the top you need a growing audience, you need a “share-able” song for the music virus to reproduce.

If you’re a smart enough producer you might not stop there, a catchy song is not enough, sometimes you need some kind of artist “feud”, a back and forth between musicians, a conversation or discussion born around the musical virus. Now when the song “infects” a small audience it will get double the hits, because your audience loves it and the song portrays another artists as negative or overall bad the fans of your song will “fight” against the fans of some other song or artists, hence both sides get more and more passionate about the song, now it’s personal.

Catchy songs are ear-worms who battle with one another for your attention, if a song involves “being against someone or something” it can grow even more because now there’s two sides engaged with this media, in this way catchy songs are almost like living organisms, they spread like a virus and not only that, theres also mutation.

Songs, Books, TV & Internet memes are more than mare mediums, they are cultural ideas. This is what I refer to as a “meme”, the word meme came before funny Internet pictures: It was coined by Richard Dakings on his book The Selfish Gene, on it he points out parallels between how biological genes want to selfishly spread no matter what and how ideas spread, to make his point more clear he coined the term meme to refer to cultural ideas, the word meme was chosen for it’s resemblance to the word gene, by this definition genes spread via genetic mutation and natural selection and memes spread via cultural means, or memetics - the study of cultural memes.

You’re being used as a tool

To be part of the Internet cultural landscape usually means taking sides, social media sides can only measure engagement via categorizing who you are, that’s what the like button does, it’s taking a side being confused for engagement. Once you have chosen your favorite band, added your best friends, stated your relationship status, date of birth, gender and religion you have been successfully put inside a box, a very narrow box which can only fit your interests, but a box nonetheless. Now that your humanity has been reduced to binary love-hate states you have been primed for manipulation.

When we look at other people we don’t tend to think of them like complex, long lasting individuals, but as characters whom just entered the play. Thanks to our digital surroundings and long ago racism, ageism and sexism, we have come to understand our neighbors as defined by their preferences: What kind of shoes they wear, the ikea on their liking room, their favorite movies, their preferred sport team, etc. With face to face conversation we can break free from this superficial judgments, we know our preferences are important, but the power of here and now makes us see the humanity behind consumer choices. The Internet robs of us this realization. When we are reduced to data points or likes we also loose some autonomy, there’s a world of possibilities out there but there’s only 3 options on the menu. The problem is that some buttons on the menu incite creating an enemy.

The power of memetics runs us over in many different scopes and contexts: We can get carried over by tribalism and memetics in sport fanaticism, politics, religion, you name it! These areas of extreme engagement in, let’s say for sake of example religion, are extremely engaging. This is by design. For an idea to be popular it must first speak to people, religion and spirituality genuinely heals our soul, after the initial spark it must then acquire a mechanism for crating a loop. Only never-ending ideas stick around for long, while simple ideas with a beginning middle and end might not.

If the goal of religion is to feed our spiritual needs, then why not stop there? If meditation, reflection, and yes even stories of some holy book work, then why is anything else a necessary part of religion? Why is hatred for other religions part of it? Well because this is an example of a loop being put forth. Same happens with sports merchandise: If the game is over, then why is it necessary to bring the team logo with you on your chest wherever you go? Because it extends the game’s engagement, because it transforms a simple game into a lifestyle. A never-ending discussion about players, past matches, speculation, athlete drama and so on.

Frantic fanatic groups don’t fulfill the needs of the people, like organized religion doesn’t fulfill the soul alone or sport doesn’t fulfill outdoor activity alone, they fulfill the needs of the system. The system prioritizes the system and noting else. Yes, you might feel personally invested in your local sport’s team, but ask yourself to what extension is it reasonable or healthy to take your passion. If you find soccer especially important, then it’s in your best interest to keep all soccer teams safe from vandalism, toxic culture, and unhealthy rivalry. If sport fanatics want a fair game, then to curb your passion from anger to empathy is the way to go. We don’t want to add external forces to the game, do we?

For a system to become self fulfilling, and therefore never-ending, it must create an out group, a them to cast as enemies. Systems do this without intentionality of course, they are systems that can only react to their environment. Memetic forces, just like in evolution, make A-B tests to find the most adapt specimen. This process of self selection is deplete of morality, the stardom of a popstar says nothing about the artistic worth of the rest of musicians, just as the popularity of an idea says nothing about it’s moral value, let alone the moral bankruptcy of the ideas in opposition. But this fact gets clouded by anger and idolization. Memetic systems drive towards idolizing, but not only in the good positive I want to be like you idol, but also in the negative this thing, idea, person or group is the enemy. The system does it both ways, it creates totems, one for the ideal good and one for the enemy.

But totems don’t reflect reality, they stand for something instead of meaning something. We can see the abstraction of totems without going into detail on Peirce though: We’ve all seen it, or at least thought about it, that when a group speaks about “the enemy” they tend to exaggerate their position. Pro abortion is baby murder, atheists are mad at god, he’s just jealous, etc. When the totem of the enemy is used, the enemy becomes a sort of cartoon of itself. From a complex set of arguments, reduced to tweet length, then reduced to an image macro meme with top and bottom text. When both groups, in favor and opposition to an idea have a cartoon totem of one another the discussion can further simplify itself. Only a simple bite sized idea can grow to be discussed forever, if the issue at hand were PHD complex the discussion would soon end on a footnote, but a digestible, us-versus-them, black-white and meme shareable idea can bloom every season.

Abstraction to no end

At some point, an endless discussion about any given topic will dilute infinitely to the point of challenging homeopathy. The topic is so abstract we’re not even taking about sports, now it’s the economics of athlete exchange, doping, expositions to game rules from matches from 1925 and body mass. The enemy is so cartooninshly evil to the point we’re not even talking about the same things. But what about the people? what about the ones who discuss? With the extreme levels of abstraction required for an idea to win the survival of the fittest everyday comes the necessity of an extremely flexible medium. A medium so capable of serving the system to the neglect of the other functions of the medium, the roads serve cars predominantly despite being made to serve pedestrians in the first place. In the case of memetics, we are the medium, for an idea to spread, evolve and survive it needs a human host to infect. Some topics, especially inside online spaces, have sticked so far in our minds that we, the medium, sometimes act as if our main function is to serve this idea, rather than to serve ourselves.

This is the sort of game at play I see in the anti-feminist movement and other neighbor manosphere topics. Some people seem so passionate about discussing exclusively their misogynist takes to the point of devoting themselves fully to the ideology. Sadly the alt-right and other similar groups have the high ground regarding popular internet culture & having at least some alt-light views is normalized. Their ideology is so predominant on the Net that users are shamed to even bring up fascism or to point out dog whistles due to Godwin’s law. When everybody is mad at postmodernists, social justice warriors, feminists and the like, it seems like these very same people don’t see the system beneath pulling the strings.

It’s angry discussion for it’s own sake. They might really care for their cause, but for what end? does it ever end? No! The only thing this will damage is their ability to view themselves as more than mediums for a memetic cause, cogs in the meme machine. What’s the point for being so angry? What’s the point at all! A real movement has goals and ends, but a selfish meme is only concerned with it’s survival. And if you cared for yourself instead of the agenda of a mindless system you would find it in your best interest to care for others, instead of casting them out. Because we’re all in the same boat, let’s begin to act like it.

Draft originally written on April 12, 2019. Published on August 27 ,2019.